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The Shell Game: Shucking With a Pro

By

Carrick Mollenkamp Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

Updated Oct. 22, 2005 12:01 a.m. ET

LONDON -- Sam Tamsanguan has some of the world's fastest hands with oysters. The five-time winner of the British shucking championship and the 1999 victor in the top-tier of oyster shucking contests in Galway, Ireland, he can open a Whitstable and present the naked oyster resting in its shell in as little as six seconds.

This month is prime oyster season in North America and Europe. At restaurants like Wiltons in London, where Mr. Tamsanguan is head shucker, and high-end seafood places in the U.S., professionals speed...